Tuesday, August 21, 2012

THE POLICEMAN I MARRIED IN 1945

In February, 1944, Leonard came back to Tennessee, after working in California a year and half and
went to Oak Ridge, Tennessee to get a job. Maybe I should say he went to a piece of land which they were going to call Oak Ridge. It looked like the background in the above picture.
The little "huts" to the left in the picture were the huts these men called home, as they worked to build a city which would become know all over the world. Leonard lived in one of these.
He was hired by the Oak Ridge Police Department and drove Car 9, along with another young man he
called Griff. They work together and became very good friends. Such good friends that when we finally had a boy we named him Hugh, after Hugh Griffin, and it was very fitting also because my grandfather's name was Hugh Floyd. Hugh later became Security at University of Tennessee and still lives in the Knoxville area.
We still see them now and then through the years and always at the Horse Show Celebration in Shelbyville each year. We would visit them in their box.
When Leonard first started working in Oak Ridge, he stood on wooden boxes in the middle of dirt roads and directed traffic. Once this happened it was like magic, a city was born overnight. No one knew what was going on behind these big plant doors.
We rented a house in Clinton and lived there six months after we were married. Then we came back where
Leonard ran a Hardware Store for my Father.
I married this policeman and it was the best choice I ever made.